Chapter 5
Five
“If you say another word about him,” Aurelia said quietly, suppressing a smile, “I am going to ask one of Violet’s dogs to keep me company instead.”
Lydia adjusted the latest pin in Aurelia’s hair and did not appear remotely concerned by this threat. "Come now, Violet’s dogs could never do your hair like I can. And I haven't said or asked anything that bad," she replied, the rest of the pins perching between her red lips.
“You were about to, I could feel it,” Aurelia replied, trying to distract herself with her latest book from the lending library.
It was a dreadful gothic novel – a woman trapped in a castle abroad after marrying an evil comte.
She tried not to draw any connections to her own situation, ignoring the images of Evander it conjured in an undone, billowing shirt.
“That says very little. I am always about to say something – but not bad. That is simply my nature and you knew it when you befriended me. But that is also why you love me.” She stepped back, examined Aurelia in the looking glass of the toilette table, and tilted her head to inspect the coiffure.
“I shall say this. You look absolutely devastating, incidentally.” She began packing away the leftover pins.
” You can thank me later – me and my deft hands.
You make masterpieces at the pianoforte, and I… ” She gestured to her hair.
Aurelia smiled genuinely. “Thank you.”
“Thank me if it survives the wedding. It might all fall out at I do. Assuming you will be able to get to the vows this time.”
“You are incorrigible,” Aurelia said, fighting a laugh. “But you must keep your voice down or else you’ll alert Aunt Violet. She was pacing all of yesterday, convinced the Marquess of Canterbury was going to show up any minute and say he had made a mistake.”
She hoped, privately, that would never happen. She never wanted to have to prepare for a wedding again. Twice was one time too many.
“I don’t blame here. It is so hard to be still when I am so excited.
This is the most fun thing that has ever happened in my life,” Lydia said, brushing an errant curl of black hair out of her eyes.
She glanced across Aurelia’s bedroom and smiled.
“Your Aunt Violet forbade me from visiting you on the morning of your last wedding – did you know that? She thinks I’m a bad influence on you. ”
Aurelia turned the page while she could still feel her fingers. “She’s right.”
“But I see she has loosened the reins for this one. She must be very pleased, despite everything. You were marrying into an exceedingly important family, yes. A marchioness is nothing to baulk at. But now you will be a duchess.”
“Becoming a duchess is the least of my concerns,” Aurelia replied morosely, glancing up and observing her reflection. She was dressed in a new bridal gown, new jewelry. But the same face stared back at her, though it looked older now, somehow. “I just want to get this over with.”
“And retreat to the country with your new, handsome husband?” Lydia grinned, laughing as Aurelia widened her eyes.
“What? He is handsome. Handsomer than even Lord Canterbury, I think. And I say that as a purely objective observation, you understand. I feel nothing about him personally. Though I am glad he scooped you up, even if he is taking you far away from me.”
Aurelia pressed her eyes shut to quell her nausea as Lydia left to select a perfume for her.
She could hear noise from downstairs. The drawing room of her aunt's house had been cleared of its usual furniture and arranged with flowers and chairs.
Twelve people, including the clergyman. That was the sum total of her second wedding.
A private and functional affair for her new pragmatic betrothed.
The ceremony was second in importance to the marriage contract.
“Has there been word from them, then? The runaway bride and groom?”
“You promised to behave,” Aurelia said, fighting a losing battle against a smile. She set her book down for good and rose from the vanity.
“I promised to try to behave, which is a materially different commitment, and you knew that when you accepted me as your maid of honour today.” Lydia paused, returning to her with a bottle of neroli oil. “Has there been?”
“Nothing beyond the first sightings of them. If they made it to the border, they must be married now. Where they went beyond that – who can say?”
“You don’t miss him?”
Aurelia tilted her neck as Lydia perfumed her behind the ear. “I did not know him enough to miss him.”
And yet, she suspected that would not be the case if Evander selected to abandon her.
“Oh, look,” Lydia said. “Your ears have gone all red. Are you allergic to this one?”
From their corner of the room, Patrick was saying something that Evander was not listening to.
He was aware of this. He was also aware that Patrick was aware of it – because Patrick Gleeson, Earl of Rosdale, had the gift of being entertaining regardless of whether his audience was actually paying attention.
“-- less time than most men take to choose a horse, which I think we can all agree is either very decisive or extremely alarming, and I genuinely cannot determine which.
My own groom required four appointments before committing to our Arabian.
And here you are, married, in a week, to an entirely different woman than was intended.
I only hope she does not buck you off or kick you in the teeth. "
Patrick turned his champagne glass in his hand and looked at it in the light.
The sun filtered through the glass and the roiling liquid, and it cast dancing shadows on his gloved hand.
He bore no wedding ring. Unlike Evander, he was married to his singlehood, and had never had designs of taking a wife.
“Not to say I’m not impressed. The efficiency is genuinely staggering,” Patrick continued when Evander remained silent.
He glanced across the room, where Aurelia stood with some women, waiting for the ceremony to begin.
“She's rather remarkable, your bride. And sturdy. She must be sturdy to go along with this. Most women, I think, would hide for months after being jilted. She is pretty too.”
“Is she?” Evander asked, forcing himself to sound neutral, observing the priest and Mrs. Hartwell out of the corner of his eye as they went over the vows.
There was an unintentional pause from him; he knew he had lied by pretending not to have noticed. In the week since Freddy had left with Lady Seraphina, he had seen Aurelia almost every day. Their meetings had been short and industrious, but she had done nothing to fall in his esteem – only rise.
And of course, she was beautiful, in a quiet and earthly way. He found, to his surprise, that he not only liked speaking with her but looking at her too. And it was an exercise he usually reserved only for good paintings or the rolling fields of his country estate.
“That was,” Patrick said, breaking Evander from his thoughts, “a very poor attempt at indifference.” He took a sip of his drink when Evander remained quiet, hoping his neck hadn’t turned red as he suspected it had.
"So, Norfolk. London will be very boring without you. Though I understand, of course, why you are leaving. Perhaps I shall tag along. I have not seen the East Anglian coast in years. Does she know how mad you are for the country? Miss Knowles, I mean?”
Evander laughed under his breath and dropped his gaze to the floor. “We have been betrothed for a week. We have barely had time to talk”, Evander said, taking a long sip of his drink. “She knows enough about me to marry me. And I know enough about her. The country had come up occasionally.”
He waited a moment, his thoughts turning involuntarily once more to his future wife.
She would prove decent company in the country, a decent wife.
Although none of this was ever meant to happen, perhaps it was for the best. He pictured her fitting better than Seraphine, than any other woman he had met, in his precious home, at his side.
To his relief, the ceremony was short. Evander had attended longer meetings for the estate about drainage.
He was aware this was not the correct way to think about his own wedding, but the thought arrived anyway. The clergyman was efficient at least, and he had the good sense not to editorialize about the circumstances.
As the ceremony progressed, he swallowed against his dry throat and said what was required.
The moment passed in a blur where time didn’t quite make sense.
Evander listened attentively, because he had decided that if he was going to do this, he was going to do it correctly – which meant being present for it, which meant not thinking about Freddy, or Seraphina – or drainage.
When he placed the ring on Aurelia’s finger, he lingered a moment there, admiring the ring on that little tower of flesh. It was not customary to exchange rings everywhere, but her mother and father had done it, she said, when they had married in Scotland many years ago, before their passing.
And if nothing else, he thought to himself, stroking his thumb against her knuckle for a selfish moment, he wanted to give her that. It helped that her hand was warm and steady in his.
He looked at her when she made her vows.
He had not planned to, specifically. But she was saying his name and promising to care for him for their entire lives, and it seemed wrong not to look.
He held her gaze because it seemed the least he could do, and also the most – and he was not entirely certain anymore what the difference was.
It was, he thought, an extremely inconvenient moment to notice that she was… remarkable.